Unlike a very popular opinion, the anime adaptation was a financial success.
Summary:
- Chainsaw Man has its issues, and fans thought it wasn't financially successful.
- A Chainsaw Man producer says it's not true.
- Chainsaw Man impacted MAPPA's production a lot.
- There's definitely a future for the series.
The anime adaptation of Chainsaw Man received its portion of criticism back in 2022 when it was airing. Fans didn't like that the season was so short that it didn't allow the story to get to the good bit. They were disappointed by the CGI and some animation aspects. The style of the anime wasn't everyone's cup of tea.
But it's hard to deny that the anime was still a major success. It received incredible scores (8.51 on MyAnimeList), it got thousands of fans into the series and made them read the manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto. Everyone was talking about Chainsaw Man, and it was great.
It Was More Successful Than We Thought
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Still, due to all the issues and problems, a lot of fans thought that Chainsaw Man wasn't as financially successful as expected. But Chainsaw Man's key producer Makoto Kimura disproves these theories and says the series had a major impact on MAPPA.
When an anime is made, there's a production committee, and if we were to explain the term in simple words, we'd say that these are a number of companies working together to produce a series.
MAPPA wanted Chainsaw Man all to themselves. They wished to obtain the rights to the anime through investments, produce it on their own and be responsible for various merch of the series. And as the producer's revealed, the company succeeded.
Chainsaw Man became a financial success for MAPPA, and it changed the way the studio viewed their projects, so we might expect more full MAPPA adaptations or original series in the future.
The Blu-ray and DVD sales numbers of Chainsaw Man were worrisome, since the series sold only around 2,000 copies during the first week, while other popular anime might sell over 15,000 copies during this amount of time. But since MAPPA was also making money from the series' merchandise, it wasn't a big issue for the studio.
All of that is just another proof that we shouldn't be looking at the digital sales numbers while speaking about a series' success. If an anime fails at selling Blu-ray and DVD copies, it doesn't mean it's over.
Series' Future Looks Bright
So if you've been anxious about the future of the series and unsure if Season 2 will ever come, you may relax, MAPPA will hardly forget about the series due to the amount of money it's bringing them.
The upcoming Reze movie will be another big step, since you obviously have to pay money to see a movie, and we have a feeling that there will be plenty of people standing in line at the closest theater.
If the movie is also successful, you can rest assured that Season 2 is happening. We just don't know when.
Source: Cool Japan Fund